Capstone Consultants' Corner

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

What do Susan Boyle, Paul Potts and J K Rowling all have in common - apart from they happen to be British? Their success did not come about overnight, or easily. Not for any of them came instant fame, and recognition in the spotlight.

"The soul is placed in the body like a rough diamond, and must be polished, or the luster of it will never appear"Daniel Defoe

No matter how frustrated, troubled or dispirited on the surface, deep down everyone I have met is truly extraordinary. However hidden, the human spirit, the diamond is always there; in you, in me.

For many of us, these times are rough. Perhaps now we can come to know and appreciate more fully our capacity for endurance and the brightness of our human spirit. What is more, we can take the polishing more into our own hands.

Here are some tips you might like to consider:

1. Know what you want

Maybe you have a talent you have longed to express and develop. If not, you probably know how you would like to be experiencing your life - perhaps with more happiness, better communications with the ones you love, greater fulfilment in your work.

Knowing is deeper and stronger than wishful thinking or hoping. It is a conviction so solid that you can base your life on it.

"There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self."Benjamin Franklin

2. Engage with your intention

Daily nurture your vision - see, feel, hear how you will be experiencing the fulfilment of your the life you want, both inwardly and in the world. Use your imagination.

If you have a talent, keep working with it. If you would like to be happier, do things that make you happy. Better communications? Be willing to learn, practise, improve - and make mistakes from time to time. Your intention will speak volumes. Fulfillment? Adjust your attitude.

"Nothing will work unless you do." Maya Angelou

4. Raise your energy - turn up the heat

Love yourself and be grateful for all you have in your life, right now. Pay attention to your blessings. Look up. Learn to forgive and laugh at the mistakes you make along the way. Each day, feel the enthusiasm for your vision, as if it has already happened. Stay open for the remarkable to take place. It will.

"There are two ways to live your life - one is as though nothing is a miracle, the other is as though everything is a miracle."Albert Einstein

5. Gather positive people around you

At the very least, spend time with people who are supportive and for you. Enrich yourself by getting to know others who are actively creating the best for themselves, and learn from them.

"If you have zest and enthusiasm you attract zest and enthusiasm. Life does give back in kind." Norman Vincent Peale

6. Get rid of what is unnecessary

Clear the clutter! Live lean with only that which you need around you. The feeling of freedom you gain will liberate you closer to what you really want.

7. Organize yourself for success

Find ways of dealing with life's necessities so that you are not distracted by them. Only agree to do what you will actually do. Learn to say no to what does not fit for you.

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves."Thomas A Edison

8. Set no time limits

Learn to live in the present moment and respond to your intuitive guidance. There are times when to act; times when to hold. You will get to know which is which.

"We have time enough if we will but use it right."Johann Wolfgang von Geothe

9. Believe in yourself - believe in your vision

Feeling doubtful? In these challenging times, young children may teach us something. As adults, we can also be persistent in going for what we value.

Consider the words of Imogen, walking with her father in the park, and Stephanie, her tv heroine:

So I'm in the park with my just-turned-three-year-old daughter when she asks:

Daddy, can I have an ice cream?I don't think we have time. We've got to go soon.There is always a way, Daddy.What?Stephanie says, there is always a way!Who says?STEPHANIE!

"A visionary is one who can find his way by moonlight, and see the dawn before the rest of the world."Oscar Wilde

10. Treasure yourself

Do the things that show you care for yourself: eat foods that serve your body; drink plenty of water; get enough sleep; exercise regularly; make time and space for fun; stay focussed on your vision and intention. Taking care of your health is a wise investment of your time and attention.

"The diamond you are, you wear within you. You can call on its beauty and power when you want to stand forward and dazzle."

Monday, February 3, 2014

Accepted wisdom holds that the less competition a business faces, the more it thrives. This concept is at the core of Blue Ocean Strategy, the 2005 best seller by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, which advocates launching in uncontested markets in order to avoid the pain of going head-to-head with rivals in the “red ocean.”

But new research shows that exposure to competition in the early stages of a firm’s life increases its long-term survival prospects.

We studied British tax data covering nearly 2 million companies launched in the UK from 1995 to 2005, looking at the competitive environment the companies faced in their first few years and at how long they remained in business. We found that companies launched in crowded markets had higher odds than others of failing in the first year—but if a company survived during this early period, it had a much greater chance of making it to the three-year mark. A firm’s early exposure to competition appears to have an immunizing effect, in much the same way that a person’s exposure to illness can create antibodies that provide long-term protection.

What Doesn’t Kill You...

How does competition help young firms thrive? A challenging environment causes start-ups to be tightly focused on satisfying customer needs along with lowering and containing costs. Consider Southwest Airlines, which launched in the crowded airline industry in 1967. Early competition forced it to create an efficiency-based, low-cost culture, one that prioritized quick turnarounds at the gate (to maximize the use of each plane) and turned its no-frills approach (such as the lack of assigned seats) into a marketing strategy.

Managers who understand the benefits of early competition can work to create conditions that will heighten its effect. Some of the 400 companies in the Virgin Group, the travel and entertainment conglomerate owned by Richard Branson, face limited direct competition. So Virgin’s managers create internal competition by measuring teams within a company against one another and by measuring each company’s performance against that of others. Venture capitalists can foster a similar dynamic by taking care not to overfund a new business, since having too much cash on hand can make it difficult to build a low-cost culture. This is one reason why Sequoia Capital, the Silicon Valley fund, has a policy against funding companies started by children of superrich families, whose deep pockets may make it hard to develop frugal managerial instincts.

Of course, early competition has a downside: Some new businesses fail before they have time to build up the immunity we describe. Still, smart managers of young businesses will bear in mind the advantages of exposure to safe levels of external competition or to a competitive environment that’s been generated inside the organization. Such exposure can have long-lasting positive effects on efficiency and survival.

Monday, January 27, 2014

“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses…The gift is yours—it is an amazing journey—and you alone are responsible for the quality of it.” ~Bob Moawad

If we try, we can always find a reason not to do what we want to do—and it can seem perfectly valid. We can convince ourselves that we’re being smart, realistic, or safe, or that we don’t even really want it.

We’re great at justifying the status quo, because we know exactly what that’s like—even if it’s dissatisfying.

So many times in my life, I’ve finally pushed myself to do something and then wondered, “Why did I wait so long?” If I had known the benefits would far outweigh my fear and discomfort, I would have pushed myself sooner.

But we can’t ever know that in advance. We can only know that our reasons to do something are greater than our excuses not to.

In my efforts to keep moving beyond my comfort zone, I’ve compiled the top 25 excuses not to go after a dream, along with a few reminders to help us overcome them.

Excuses About Time

1. I’m too busy to do what I love.

2. I don’t have time to discover what I’m passionate about.

3. I’ve already put a lot of time into a different path.

4. I’ll do it—someday.

5. It’s too late for me now.

We all have the same number of hours in each day, and we all have the potential to use them to do what we want to do.

That being said, we’re all starting with different schedules, responsibilities, and obstacles. A single, childless person who inherited a large sum of money may have more immediate time freedom than someone with a large family and mounting debt.

I share this not to be discouraging, but rather to acknowledge reality: We all have unique circumstances that could make it challenging to find or make time.

While it might be easier for some of us, it’s possible for all of us.

We can all create at least a small window of time to take one simple step. We can all decide our dreams are priorities, and that we owe it to ourselves to pursue them, regardless of what we’ve done before. We can all recognize it’s never too late for us unless we decide it is.

The important thing to realize is that the time is now, whether we have days, hours, or even just minutes to devote. We might not have the time to do everything, but we all have the time to do something.

Excuses About Money

6. I don’t have the money to get started.

7. I need to continue earning exactly what I earn now.

8. I can’t make any changes until I pay off my debt.

9. I need a bigger safety net before I take a risk.

10. What if I can’t make any money at it?

We all need money to live—there’s just no getting around it.

We may sometimes have to do things we don’t love to get by, and we may not all be able to completely change our lives overnight. We might not be able to up and travel the world, or make massive financial investments in our goals.

What we can do is decide that our dreams are important, and then leverage our most valuable resource—our passion—to honor them as best we can.

That might mean doing something on the side as a hobby, or bartering for free lessons, or volunteering our time to help someone who will serve as a mentor.

We don’t need a massive amount of money to start, or a guarantee that we’ll make a ton of money down the line.

We just need to know that our dreams are worth the effort, and that we’re willing to be creative with the resources we have.

Excuses About Knowledge

11. I don’t know where to start.

12. I don’t know enough to start.

13. I’m not smart enough to succeed.

14. I don’t know if I can make it.

15. I’m not an expert.

No one knows going in exactly what they need to do—or what they can do. No one has it all figured out, and no one starts off with expertise.

If we wait until we feel we know everything we need to know, we’ll likely never act.

When I wrote for a ‘tween publication, I interviewed a young girl named Leah Larson who started a magazine called Yaldah at 13 years old.

She wrote all the articles for the first issue herself, and then made countless calls to printers and potential advertisers, having no idea what she was doing. Perhaps because she was so young, she never worried about what she didn’t know. She just jumped in and started learning.

Ten years later, Yaldah has expanded to Yaldah Media Inc., which now offers books, retreats, and more. She’s grown with her company, as we all can with any dream.

We don’t need to know everything to start. We just need to know we want and need to do it.

Excuses About Other People

16. My friends and family don’t think I can do this.

17. My friends and family don’t think I should do this.

18. I need to focus on the people who need me.

19. I don’t have anyone to do this with.

20. It’s all about who you know—and I don’t know the right people.

There will never be a day when everyone agrees with us, believes in us, and supports us. There may never be a time when other people stop needing us. And for many of us, there won’t be a likeminded partner waiting to hold our hand on a parallel journey.

If we believe in ourselves, none of these things have to deter us. As we do what we love and create new possibilities for ourselves, we will inevitably form mutually beneficial relationships.

In my early days on Twitter, I had a different account where I tweeted uplifting messages. It was my first attempt at making the difference I wanted to make.

Back then, I’d never have imagined I’d be connected to so many amazing people; and I wasn’t sure I could run a website since I knew nothing about the tech side of things.

One day, a web strategist and designer named Joshua Denney tweeted about me, complimenting my profile and tweets. Since we connected then, he’s been instrumental in shaping Tiny Buddha—and he’s become one of my closest confidantes, consultants, and friends.

There are countless people out there who could support and help us, but we can only meet them if we put ourselves out there too.

Excuses About Probability

21. Things likely wouldn’t pan out.

22. Many people have tried to do this and failed.

23. I’ll probably be scared and uncomfortable if I try.

24. I’m not sure if this is the “right” decision.

25. There aren’t any guarantees.

The reality is there aren’t any guarantees. That means even a sure thing could one day be not so sure. Certainty is an illusion that comes from comfort—but just because something’s comfortable, that doesn’t mean it’s permanent.

We can either cling to what feels safe, avoiding potential disappointment, or realize the worst disappointment is the type we feel in ourselves.

That’s what happens when we ignore our calling; we may feel more secure for not taking a risk, but we also feel unhappy with ourselves for not finding the courage to do it.

We can’t ever know what the results our efforts will be, but we can know we dramatically decrease our odds of feeling satisfied if we make it a priority to do what we love—no matter where it leads us.

That’s what it means to make the “right” decision—to do what feels right, right in this moment, the only one that’s guaranteed.

–

And one more excuse I didn’t include: I’m not good enough. We’ve all thought this at one time or another. Especially in our socially connected world where we have constant reminders of everyone else’s achievements, it’s easy to feel we don’t stack up.

But maybe we don’t have to. Maybe we don’t need to be better than anyone else, or even better than we are now to make a difference.

Maybe the world needs us exactly as we are, with our unique blend of skills, talent, and potential. Maybe the difference we make isn’t just about where we end up, but also how we learn, grow, and share on the way there.

Sure, our gifts and accomplishments can make the world a better place, but what we really want and need is to be inspired—and what’s more inspiring than starting right where you are, believing in yourself, and taking a leap of faith?

When we’re feeling overwhelmed, it can seem like dreams are luxuries, but they’re not reserved for the chosen few. They’re reserved for people who choose to believe in them and act on it.

To do that, we need to stop telling ourselves the story of why we can’t, and start creating the story of how we can.

Friday, January 24, 2014

Cooperation is a tough dynamic to foster. You must pay careful
attention to all the elements of effective teamwork, adjusting your
approach as necessary to accommodate the personalities of the team
members. But with thoughtful planning and organization, as well as the
right kinds of motivation, you can make any team more effective.

Communication

Each team member must know what her teammates are doing,
especially if the project is complex. Open lines of communication --
among peers and also with the supervisor -- allows the entire team to
respond quickly to unforeseen events. For example, suppose a personal
emergency causes one team member to miss an upcoming deadline. Rapid
communication among the other members allows them to quickly pick up the
slack.

Effective Interpersonal Relations

Even simple projects require effective interpersonal relations.
For example, a team leader must be an effective manager, offering
guidance and encouragement to under-performing team members and keeping
tabs on everyone’s progress. The team members also must work together
well, not competing for credit, but rather focusing on how to help, or
at least not impede, their teammates. Also, team members must maintain
functional relationships with the team leader, for example, by being
open to criticism and following directions well.

Task Delegation

If a team leader doesn't delegate tasks well, the team can't
capitalize on the primary advantage of teamwork: differentiated skills.
Abilities and experience vary among team members, so the project’s
assignments should be based on who can best perform each task. The
overall effect of smart task delegation is efficiency. If everyone does
what he is best at, the team functions at its highest possible level.

Goals

Another key element of effective team management is setting clear
and reasonable short- and long-term goals. For example, a team leader
might break the main goal of a project into a chronological series of
steps. Then she might group the steps into various stages, assigning a
deadline for the end of each stage. The team then can be confident that
steady progress toward its short-term goal means the long-term goal is
closer, as well.

Motivation

Motivation comes in many varieties. Not getting yelled at by your
boss, for example, is a form of motivation -- but not a very effective
one. The best kinds of motivation enhance job satisfaction and a sense
of personal accomplishment. For example, motivating a team might involve
offering individual team members rewards for work well done, as well as
offering group awards for beating deadlines. The individual rewards
motivate by ensuring hard-working team members get due credit, and group
awards motivate by ensuring no one feels left out.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

Most of the time, creativity is a hard fire to get started. Then
there are the times when it’s like trying to light a wet match; when
getting started or getting unstuck on a project is just next to
impossible. You’ve sat down, you know what needs to get done, but your
mind is just blank or filled with useless ideas. We’ve all been there.

Struggling to be inspired or having good ideas is just part of the
creative professional’s job. In fact, one might argue that our greatest
ideas come from moments when we’ve had to fight for them the hardest.
After all, being a creative means that you’re committed to coming up
with great, purposeful ideas whether you deal with graphics,
illustrations, or photography, or art direction, or any creative field.
That’s just part of the job of any self-respecting creative.
That’s why it’s doubly frustrating when we’re creatively blocked or
when we get stuck on a project and we have no solutions that we’re happy
with. Ironically, that’s when most of us need great ideas the most.
The following is just a collection of thoughts and suggestions that
I’ve come up with in my own struggles with lighting my creative spark.

Start With ‘You’

What I realized as I struggled with my creative blocks is that they
are usually caused by a lack of focus. Sometimes, I’ll get pulled in so
many directions (professionally, socially, personally, etc.) and I’ll
lose focus on every single aspect of my life. And I don’t think I have
to tell anyone that when you spread yourself too thin, when forget to
take care of yourself, everything else around you suffers.
Therefore, whenever I get stuck, I always start with me. What do I like? What makes me happy?
I allow myself to revisit the things that I like, personally. I shut out everything else even for just a few minutes.
For instance, I love movies. There’s something about movies that I
just love as a creative. Movies have photography, narrative, and music,
all rolled up in 90-120 minute visual odysseys of human expression. What
more, can one ask for? Watching movies, or at the very least reading
about movies, gets my imagination started.
The key is to find something you love enough that you start thinking
about possibilities instead of impossibilities. With movies, I always
think about telling my own stories or writing my own movie or shooting
photos in the same style. It gets me thinking about possibilities about
the stuff I like. Even if it’s unrelated to the project I’m working on, I
have at least gotten myself out of a pattern of thinking about what I
can’t do and instead it has gotten me thinking of the stuff I can do.
Now, I’m not going to write a movie in or shoot my own film in
between my projects but just allowing myself to think about the
possibilities of something else reminds me that there’s always light at
the end of the tunnel.

When Things Get Tough, The Creative Gets Even More Creative

Sometimes, the best place to look for inspiration is a place you’d
never think to look. Actually, sometimes it could be the place you’ve
always avoided. It might be because you always thought it was too hard
or that you might not succeed when you try it. However, now that you’re
already at a creative low isn’t that the best time to try it? What have
you got to lose?
For instance, I was always a little curious about screen printing
graphic t-shirts but thought it was something that I couldn’t possibly
do properly since I’ve never thought of myself as particularly “crafty.”
That’s why I avoided it. Then one day, during a particularly stagnant
point in my life, I decided to do some research on how to do it. I
watched videos, read all the information I could find on screen
printing, talked to some people with experience, researched local supply
merchants and costs, and I just decided to start. At the very least,
I’d end up with a working knowledge of how to screen-print and at the
very most, I’d end up with my own t-shirt company.
Obviously, my first t-shirt wasn’t the greatest thing on earth. In
fact, it was a disaster. However, doing all that research on a new
medium, designing the graphic, and exerting myself in a creative manner
did lead me to the conclusion that designing was something I wanted to
do and something that I should appreciate. The fact that I get to do
something creative at all was enough to get me inspired.

Don’t Push

I don’t know about you, but just like a mule, the more I push and
pull on the reigns of my creativity, the more frustrating it becomes to
get it going. You can’t trick yourself into getting motivated or
inspired; it just happens. However, you can refocus your efforts on
something else until you remember what it feels like to have new ideas
again.
The more you push your creativity in a direction it doesn’t want to
go the more failures you’ll face. It’s because creating something takes a
little faith. You have to believe in what you’re working on in order
for it be worthy of existing. If you don’t believe in your work, your
clients or your audience won’t believe in it either. You can’t beat your
work into submission. It is either good or it is bad. You’ll know
either way.

Laugh

Make something funny. Read something funny. Do something silly. Just make an effort to stop taking things so seriously.
I won’t say anything about laughter and it’s relation to medicine
because that’ just unoriginal. I will, however, say that being silly
often helps me detach from all other distractions and it relieves me of
the pressure I feel when I stare at a blank page or a blank canvas.
I’ve always thought that creative work was supposed to be fun or at
least free from all the seriousness and direness often associated with
other jobs like being a neurosurgeon or a professional arm wrestler.
However, sometimes, with deadlines looming and pressure building, it’s
easy for me to forget the fact that creative work is first and foremost
about creativity. It’s about taking your ideas and daring to make
something out of them and achieving results. If you take yourself too
seriously, you’ll always second-guess yourself and that’s never good for
getting things done. Besides, if you’re seriously creative, other
people will take your work seriously and that’s what matters.

If All Else Fails…

Walk away. Just get up even for just a little bit and just forget
about it. Do something completely unrelated. Gain a new perspective. The
key is to experience something else besides creative frustration.
Personally, I try to go for a workout or a jog. Anything where I can
exert myself in other ways that is not mental in nature is always a good
choice. I don’t read, I don’t watch TV, I don’t doodle, or write. The
thinking is, if I have a fight with my body, my mind doesn’t have to
work so hard on my creative block. Usually, when I get back to the
drawing board, I’m at least refreshed enough to give my projects another
try even if I’m not necessarily “inspired.” At least I haven’t given up
and I live to try another day.
What are some of the ways you get inspired?

Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Competition by its very nature is barbaric. You survive and advance by beating others.

As an ex-Wall Streeter, a passionate endurance racer -- running 300 consecutive miles as one painful example -- and a kid from Queens, I know firsthand the pain and glory of winning and losing. Competition is cruel and America needs a whole lot more of it.

Today, everyone gets a trophy. Wristbands have replaced stopwatches as the new performance measure. Everyone wins. The self esteem before score mantra has built a handholding fantasy culture that is leaving our children woefully unprepared for the ups and downs of life. As Bill Gates so poignantly has said: "Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not."

Competition matters profoundly. Why? Life is a competition at every turn and many times the rules of engagement are not fair. Measuring performance matters. Without it we are a nation of underachievers. It is time our country and our kids to get back to winning and losing on the playing fields and failing and honor-rolling in the classroom. Our fun run approach to life is weaning future generations off of guts, fortitude, discipline, risk taking, confidence and other critically important ingredients for achievement. No wonder the United States ranks 25th and 17th out of 34 countries in math and science.

In 2004 I co-founded the Death Race. It's just what you would expect. Participants sign a three-word waiver: I may die. While this race is not for everyone, there is something about the Death Race that has mass appeal -- our primal desire to win, however you define that. This, too, is a founding principle of the Reebok Spartan Race. In just three years Spartan Race has grown 1500 to 650,000 participants in more than 60 races around the world. Like it or not, we are hard-wired for competition and all its toughness.

Spartan Race tracks winners, times and placements not only as a way for people to measure themselves against others, but ultimately to determine their personal best. A Spartan wants to know how they stack up against previous attempts so they can improve. Spartans crave something more and are taking the steps to find it. It is our duty to provide Spartans with clear measurements of personal success, or failure, to illustrate for them what they have accomplished.

Some say competition is toxic. They are not wrong. Life is toxic. Others will say it is lame to time race participants and track who wins and loses. They are definitely wrong. If you're content with just showing up, then be prepared to have a long line in front of you in almost every aspect of your life.

What many people fail to realize is that like Spartans, like all of us, children instinctively want to win. Competition is ingrained in the human mind and spirit as part of natural selection. We crave it. The balance is how to take that instinctive desire to compete and fuel it while also teaching how to recover from failure. It's impossible to do that when everyone gets a medal. Pushing the limits and testing yourself make that very possible. The sooner kids know that winning matters, the better. The winner gets into school. The winner gets the corner office. The winner gets the mate and that house on the water.

We need to teach that too. We need to let our kids fail more. Life is not a sporting event with perfect rules and regulations and without losers. The best and smartest don't always win. Sometimes breaking the rules and not playing fairly are rewarded with victory. Will your kids be ready for that? Mine will.

Thursday, January 9, 2014

In business, good leadership means good vision: a successful business must have a clear vision of its aims and purpose. And, like a business, we, too, should have a “vision statement” in order to lead and manage our lives effectively.

Your Personal Vision Statement is a concise expression of your philosophy, beliefs, and vision of what you want your life to be about. A clear vision statement says directly – and helps you focus on – what you want to be and do.

In this exercise, you’ll take the first steps toward writing your personal mission statement. You won’t have to write a finished essay; all you need to do for now is jot down some ideas, and make a list of what you’d like to do and who you’d like to be.

Before you begin writing, take some time just to think about it. Ask yourself: What contributions would I like to make? How would I like to be remembered? What effect would I like to have on people? What do I want my life to “add up to?” Go slowly; these questions are important to you.

There are no “wrong” statements, so don’t get hung up or too self-critical here; let this just be your own personal vision of how you’d like your world to look. You’ll get a chance to refine your vision statement after you’ve done all the other exercises. In fact, this step is really a preparation for creating your vision statement later.

To help you get started, I have provided a few examples. After reading them, let your imagination run free and think about what your fondest desires and deepest hopes would look like if they became real in your life.

What would you like to do?- Examples- Climb mountains; Run a marathon; Write a best-selling book; Retire by age 50; See my grandchildren graduate college; Become a minister; Serve the poor; Learn topaint; Learn a foreign language; Live in a foreign country; Pay off my mortgage; Run for public office; Own my own company.

After you’ve made some notes, look over the lists you’ve compiled. These are the things that are important to you now.

About Me

Capstone Consultants - works in conjunction with a Fortune 500 telecommunications company and plans to expand to 3 more cities within a year. The Firm operates an intense fast-paced management training program which prepares top-flight personnel for an array of firms in today’s fast-paced global market.